“I need someone to go with me on a final tour of Heraklion to make sure there are no Mageia remaining in the city,” he announced abruptly as he entered the room.
“Vl-Luke- could—” I began, but he interrupted me.
“How about it, kitten? You up for a final recon? I’d hate to leave anyone behind if we didn’t have to.”
His silver eyes burned into me, issuing a silent challenge. Luke and Betts shared a glance before turning to me, eyes wide and playing innocent. My brother ducked his head when I turned my glare on him, but I could tell he was smirking at me.Ass.
“Unless you’re afraid to be alone with me,” Hel whispered in my ear as he slid next to me at the table.
I glared at Hel, unable to repress a shiver at his nearness. I could tell by the glint in his eye that he knew exactly the effect he was having on me.
“Fine,” I growled. Might as well get it over with. We were going to be stuck on a ship together for a couple of days anyway. Might as well clear the air. I needed to make it clear that there was nothing more between us, so I turned my mind to business.
It had been several days since we had heard even a whisper of any Mageia remaining in the city. I’d been speaking with each recruit to try to track and confirm the number of Mageia that had been in this Machi. As far as I could tell, there were only a small handful unaccounted for, maybe as few as one or two.
Hel and I set out right after breakfast, the sun sending shafts of golden light across the city as it peeked over the horizon.
The trip was not what I had expected. I’m not sure exactly what I’d thought would happen, but I hadn’t expected that we would spend the day moving largely in silence. Occasionally Hel would point out a hazard, but otherwise we moved quietly formost of the day, hardly speaking as we watched for signs of any remaining Mageia.
We initially planned on it being only a day trip, but sometime late afternoon Hel caught a fresh scent, and we started moving further and further from the tunnel system.
It was early evening, the darkness spreading like spilled ink across the hulk of the city when Hel finally spotted our quarry. I had been enclosing us within a bubble of silence, so the first indication of trouble was Hel’s sudden stillness.
He crouched down behind the rusted hulk of some kind of vehicle. Hel called them “automobiles”. Apparently, they were conveyances that didn’t require magic to power them. Seemed inefficient to me, but what did I know?
Hel pointed two fingers at his eyes, then pointed across the avenue to a pair of buildings that stood like silent sentinels around a bubbling pool. It was one of the freshwater sources Hel had us routinely monitor for activity.
At first, I didn’t see anything, and I glanced back at Hel for confirmation.
“You sure?” I whispered. Even though I knew sound couldn’t travel beyond my Air bubble, it seemed like tempting fate to be any louder.
He nodded, tapping the side of his nose. Of course, those damn Soma senses. I saw the breeze ruffle his golden hair and I was entranced for a moment at the way the setting sun reflected the gold in it.
I tore my gaze away and back to the water, waiting for what seemed like forever, until I saw it: Someone was moving low to the ground, slowly moving closer to the pool.
When she paused to look around for any threats, I realized I recognized her. She was a young Fire Mageia from Alexandria that I had known only in passing by the name of Skyla. She had never participated in the joint exercises wehad held with other Hoplites, but she had never been overtly unfriendly, either.
Her blond hair was dirty and matted. Her clothing had seen better days. There were tears and rips in her shirt, her tac pants were covered in mud smears, and the jacket she wore had been taken from a Roman Legionnaire from the looks of the eagle symbol emblazoned on the arm.
Her clothes weren’t the only thing that looked like they’d seen better days. There was just enough light to see that her face was bruised and there were dark hollows under her eyes. She’d lost weight since I had last seen her, and her cheeks looked gaunt.
She moved slowly, cautiously, filling containers with fresh water before slipping back to the relative safety of the buildings. We tracked her from the watering hole to a building that looked like it had been a bookstore at one time. We lost sight of her multiple times as she dodged and doubled back on herself. If it hadn’t been for Hel’s enhanced senses, we would never have been able to follow her.
After she entered the decrepit building Hel turned to me.
“How do you want to play this?” he asked quietly, his voice rasping slightly.
I considered his question. I didn’t want to scare her, but I was also wary of her power. Fire Mageia were dangerous and hot headed even outside the Machi. Inside it, they were lethal.
“I’ve seen her before, but I don’t know her very well,” I said. “I can try talking to her, see if I can convince her to join us.”
“She must be damn good if she’s survived this long without getting killed.”
I shrugged. “She looks like she’s in rough shape. She’s lost a lot of weight, but that could be just because she’s using a lot of power. The more magic we perform, the more calories we need to fuel our bodies.”
“Okay. You go in the front, and I’ll circle around to the back of the building, just to make sure there are no nasty surprises waiting for us,” he said.
I nodded and we separated, him fading into the shadows of the late afternoon, and me heading toward the front door of the building.
